“As fast as possible we fixed up this land.  Of course, it took years.  We hadn’t money, and there were many things that had to be done,—­changing fields, getting out stumps, doing drainage,—­it all took time.  I had my plans made and was working as fast as I could.

“Two things I did, to keep life in our bodies until we got ready to make some money.  One was to cut off every bit of timber on the farm.  Our neighbors laughed at us and prophesied rain and all that.  There were two things in my mind.  We had to have money to live on, and I managed to get quite a little of it in that way.  In the next place we didn’t have much of a farm, and I wanted the land for tillage.  We can buy wood of the neighbors to-day, cheaper than we sold ours, so we never lost anything.

“Another way we got some money, as we went along, that helped us, was raising forage crops.  I did not attempt to put in crops that required much hand labor.  I raised Hungarian, and everything I could to be fed to cows.  In our dairying section, with feed often scarce in the fall, farmers often had more stock than they could winter.  We could pick up cows cheaply on credit and hold them.  I could winter them for people, and the manure we used as a top dressing, to make the clover grow.  Starting with a little piece of land, we spread out more and more, and got more and more enriched, and more and more growing clover, and by and by we got all the cultivated land growing it.  Then we were ready for business.

“I am afraid to tell you Illinois farmers, with your great big farms, how large our farm was.  We bought one hundred and twenty-five acres.  We sold off all but fifty-five.  That didn’t help us, for the man who bought it was so poor he didn’t pay us for over thirty years.  Then the land went up in price and he was able to sell it for a good price and we got our money.  Fifty-five acres were selected, the best we could for our purpose.  Twenty acres were so situated as to have no value.  Thirty-five acres were fairly good, tillable land, the best we could pick out.  I began a system of rotation, after we got the land ready for it, of clover, potatoes, and wheat.  My idea was to have the clover gather fertility to grow potatoes and wheat.  I was going to make use of the tillage to help out all I could, and sold the potatoes and wheat, and then had clover again, and so on around the circle.  Everybody said, of course I would fail.  I didn’t know but I would.  It was the only chance and I had to take it.

“Of course it took quite a while to get this thing going.  The first three or four years didn’t amount to much.  After six or eight years we were surprised at the result.  We were getting more than we hoped for.  In a dozen years the whole country was surprised.  I remember when a reporter was sent from Albany, New York, to see what we were doing, and reported in the “Country Gentlemen.”  We had visitors by the score from various states, it made such a stir.  They couldn’t believe